LIMERICK — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s announcement Thursday to comply with a federal court ruling regarding the storage of spent nuclear fuel will delay a decision on the re-licensing of the Limerick nuclear power plant by at least two years.

Currently, the operating licenses on the Limerick plant’s two nuclear reactors expire Oct. 26, 2024, for Unit 1, and June 22, 2029, for Unit 2.

Exelon has submitted a request for a 20-year extension on both licenses and a final decision had been expected as early as next April.

But on Thursday, the NRC announced it would not fight the June 8 ruling by the U.S. District Court of Appeals that found the agency could not ignore the possibility that the federal government may never build a national repository for America’s spent nuclear fuel.

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Long-planned for a facility being built under Yucca Mountain, Nev., the future of that solution was made unclear when President Obama stopped work, pulled the funding and appointed a blue ribbon commission to study the matter.

That decision was applauded by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat representing Nevada, who had long opposed his state being the depository for the nation’s nuclear left-overs.

But even before Obama’s decision, many of the spent fuel pools at nuclear plants older than Exelon Nuclear’s Limerick Generating Station had already reached their design capacity, and beyond, and began setting up “dry storage” canisters on-site.

At Limerick, ground was broken in 2007 for a dry cask storage system that is now storing the plant’s older, colder spent fuel. All the fuel that has ever been burned at Limerick since it began operating remains on site to this day.

Spent fuel rods are what remains after the uranium pellets inside the fuel rods in a reactor no longer generate enough heat to create the steam that turns the turbines and generates electricity at a nuclear power plant.

Although cooler, this spent fuel remains radioactive for hundreds of years.

The Appeals Court ruled that in evaluating the risks from on-site storage of spent fuel, “NRC should have considered the potential environmental effects in the event a permanent repository for disposing of spent fuel is never built, and found other deficiencies with the agency’s consideration of leaks and fires involving spent fuel pools,” the NRC wrote in a prepared release.

The court was ruling on a challenge to something called “waste confidence,” an NRC policy that concluded “spent fuel can be safely stored for decades beyond the licensed operating life of a reactor without significant environmental effects. It enables the NRC to license reactors or renew their licenses without examining the effects of extended waste storage for each individual site pending ultimate disposal,” the release stated.

In other words, up until now, the NRC had taken the position that spent fuel was so safe, it not an issue to be considered when deciding on re-licensing nuclear power plants, Limerick included, but the court over-turned that conclusion.

The first reaction to the court decision came on Aug. 7, when the NRC announced it would not renew or issue new plant licenses dependent on the waste confidence rule, “until the court’s remand is appropriately addressed.”

However, until Thursday, it unknown whether the NRC would appeal the ruling or comply, thus the length of the delay in issuing new licenses was not evident.

“The Commission’s recent decision to further review the waste confidence issue does not affect Limerick’s current operating license nor the station’s safe and effective on-site used fuel storage program,” Dana Melia, communications manager for the plant wrote in an e-mail.

“Limerick Generating Station has a history of safe and reliable operations and a comprehensive aging management program. As a result, Limerick’s license renewal application is both strong and on track with the NRC,” she wrote.

In its announcement, the NRC indicated it intends to have the response and a new analysis “completed within 24 months.”

The response will be to “develop an environmental impact statement and a revised waste confidence decision and rule on the temporary storage of spent nuclear fuel.”

The NRDC petitioned the Atomic Licensing and Safety Board, arguing, among other things, that the reactors should not be re-licensed without a new, site-specific environmental impact review.

Out of the nation’s 104 operational nuclear power reactors, the NRC says 71 have been approved for license renewals while 14, including the Limerick units, are under review. The NRC has never denied a license renewal request.